Since there are many more valid players than there are possible options in this forum's rather arbitrarily limited poller, and if you're interested in real data, I would suggest finding better polling software?

I suggest dividing the poll into 3 q's by OS - Win // Mac // Linux/BSD ; with something like "Other OS or Player" as the last option in each category. This way more info is presented in the actual poll results, and less software - that may be worth interest - being buried in the comments.

There's always room for nitpickery over whether e.g. Squeezebox Controller is a computer running Linux, or just a remote control for the server on your computer. Or whether iDevices are computers. I have no idea whether the troublesome solutions have enough users around here for this to be any issue.

Sometimes I just stream from a website to my computer using a site's browser plugin or proprietary app. Perhaps it would be insightful to make one of the choices in each OS all browser-based or site-specific streaming app usage.

Yes AIMP must be in the list IMHO, but don't specify a version number as I know many people who are happy to still use v2.6x and won't bother to update (something to do with the converter and the skins IIRC).

Obviously putting OS X and Linux into the same basket won't work. Moc and mpd are two nix cli players that seem to be used a lot (at least outside of ubuntuisem).(but i doubt many people are actually bothered to install those on osx).

Should Spotify be part of this? It can play your local files, and it certainly is installed on many computers.

I will assume that Spotify users use it primarily for internet streaming. Then what is the purpose of this poll? Is it to find out what is used to play local files, or is it to find out what is used to play music from computer? In the latter case, it should be included on par with everything else, and if people stream from Spotify more than they play from hard drive, they should vote for Spotify. Simple as that. If this is against the purpose of the poll, then one either has to rule the application out, because it could (/would) cause confusion -- or one has to specify the restriction very clearly.

And like VLC, Spotify is multiplatform. Indeed, I would assume that the biggest player for iStuff is iTunes, and that is multiplatform. Is it a major point of the poll to differentiate over platforms, or isn't it? If not, what about- Windows-only- Multiplatform- Others?

I don't think this is "obvious" at all. In other places, there's no end to Mac users whinging about there being no good alternative to iTunes, despite the fact that pretty much all "Linux" players run on OS X. OS X is Unix-certified, FFS! Proprietary vs. Free/Open might be a good place to divide, though.

Porcus: Yeah, I know many Spotify users in #foobar2000. I'll ditch Songbird for Spotify. I know users of the latter; I know no users of the former.

There's always room for nitpickery over whether e.g. Squeezebox Controller is a computer running Linux, or just a remote control for the server on your computer.

Are we specifically talking only about software used to play music from a general-purpose computer?

If so, you needn't include Squeezebox or similar streaming players from from audio companies like Sonos, Meridian, PS Audio, Cambridge and others. Nor the network media players from consumer electronics companies like Western Digital and D-Link. Nor the audio streaming capabilities of many DVD players and smart TVs.

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Or whether iDevices are computers. I have no idea whether the troublesome solutions have enough users around here for this to be any issue.

Nor any other smart phone or digital audio players from the likes of SanDisk, Samsung, Creative etc.

A more interesting question might be how many people even use a general purpose computer for audio playback? In this forum it's probably fairly high. Outside of it, I imagine non-computer playback devices are becoming much more prevalent.

The *nix section really has to include MPD, which can be taken to mean "mpd+client(s)". It's rather hard to imagine running MPD but no client, or trying to use one of its clients without MPD, so there isn't much point in either splitting hairs or in caring much which exact client is favoured. Anyone with both headless and GUI machines may well use two different clients; add tablets and phones and MPD's native http streaming server and a single user might use 3, 4 or even 5 different platform or desktop specific clients plus a plain www browser at different times, all in fact controlling MPD. Simply listing "MPD" is concise and sane.

mplayer is another application that probably should be in any list. The command line application is a useful player (can play gapless with a named pipe) and also serves as a back end for lots and lots of other players (see http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/projects.html). Again it would make sense imo for "mplayer" to mean all the various GUIs and front ends.